GENE SIMMONS DISCUSSES AI IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

During an appearance on an early edition of Balance Of Power, KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons spoke to Bloomberg TV Washington correspondent Joe Mathieu about how artificial intelligence (A.I.) is revolutionizing the music industry through the use of A.I. music generators. These tools use machine learning algorithms to analyze existing music and create new compositions based on that analysis, including producing entire tracks using A.I.-generated music.

Asked if A.I. is a worry for him or not, Simmons said (as transcribed by blabbermouth.net), “A.I. is a concern if left unregulated. Anything — a beautiful horse that you just bring in, if it runs wild… You’ve got to have some parameters that we control instead of A.I. Right now, there’s a country and western star that’s got a number one record of sorts on some chart. [The artist] doesn’t actually exist.”

“The major problem here, potentially, hypothetically and otherwise, is that if states have the right, and this has to be settled right away — the government must get a federal law that encompasses all of A.I. to get some sanity out of this,” Simmons explained. “Because if you can do A.I. legally in Delaware, where you have all your companies so you pay less taxes… Why should they wanna do real music and real art in New York when they can just go to Delaware and do A.I.? No. You need a federal law that encompasses the entire country. And I would highly recommend, and I would hope the entire planet really gets together. It’s an issue for the UN to get a world body to accept it, because it’s gonna happen to the same — same thing that happened to the unions in America. You charge too much here, so we’ll do business in China. No. You want to address the A.I. issue worldwide so we can control what the rules are, the comings and the going and what’s the income stream? Who owns the I.P.? Who’s the owner of the trademark?”

22 Responses

  1. There’s not much context to this interview clip, so I’m not sure I understand what exactly it is that Gene is identifying as a problem. What do individual states have to do with anything? AI can (and is) used nationwide (worldwide). Is he talking about AI replacing actual artists and their income? If so, that genie (as opposed to Gene…get it?) is out of the bottle. Short of making AI illegal to create music (not going to happen), there’s not a lot that can be done.

    Most disturbing in all this is that, as Gene said, there was recently a #1 hit song on the country charts by an AI-generated “artist.” And in that case, the problem isn’t necessarily AI or the people who behind the AI-generated song, IT’S THE COUNTRY MUSIC-BUYING/LISTENING PUBLIC! They liked this particular song enough to make it NUMBER ONE – regardless of who the “artist” was. At the risk of sounding like I’m blaming the consumer, I AM blaming the consumer. They obviously don’t value the idea of an artist writing, recording, producing an original piece of music as much as they value the instant gratification of the song.

    I do commend the others on this message board who still value music made by living, breathing artists. However, what’s obvious now is that a significant portion of the general public (country music fans, for one) doesn’t care if a song is AI-generated or created by an actual artist. And sadly, that key fact will not have gone lost on record company suits and shareholders.

  2. I’m telling you, there are two people in this world: people with musical talent, and people without musical talent, and trust me, the latter, a lot of them, are so jealous that they created something to get rid of musicians. They see musicians be creative and get the praise, and they hate it. A lot of record executives actually hate musicians for this same reason, trust me. In the mid ’90s software design companies were replacing the nightclubs in the Bay Area, and there was a movement to make musicians extinct, and that never went away, and it’s coming.

    And just a note on Gene, he is the only person who can do his act; a tribute guy doesn’t work, an impersonator doesn’t work. The only person who can do his stage moves, and his character, is him. None of the Kiss tribute bands work because of that.

    1. Thank you Mr. R N’R,

      It’s a very precarious time. I am just thankful, I am not young, as the future appears bleak. I hope I am wrong, nothing would give me greater pleasure, than being proven incorrect about my beliefs.

    2. Dana, right on cue .I just read your article on PI$$’ “crazy knives”…Pairs well with Ai

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